The fact that the Catholic Church and conservative allies managed to insert an outright ban on abortion into the Irish Constitution in 1983 doesn't mean that it could never be reversed, because the democratic processes were there to do just that.

Increasing economic inequality has been driving political polarisation in most "western" countries with the right in the ascendant. It need not, and won't always be that way...

I also agree a written constitution is no panacea for other ills, but it places the ownership of a state in the hands of the people rather than in the hands of an elite of lawyers, politicians, royalists and murky background money.

In time the people can learn to exercise their ownership wisely: the problem with the UK is that the constitution and FPTP electoral system makes politics an irrelevance for most people, and so their ignorance of what is really going on becomes profound.

People don't engage with what they cannot control. In this case the EU became the fall-guy, when the real problems are much closer to home.

Index of Frank's Diaries